Shelley´s "A Summer Evening Churchyard", Gray´s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" and "En un cementerio de lugar castellano" by Unamuno

Death, as the greatest human truth, is and an excellent topic in poetry, beholded sometimes as a fearful hour, sometimes as the definitive peace. There is a calidoscopic view of these three authors about death and the place where it dwells; the prerromanticism of Gray, the full romanticism of Shelley and the anguish of life of Unamuno.

Shelley stresses the idea of peace and rest that Death provides. As a romantic he makes of Death a magical thing, one more step in the circle of life. Nature plays a very important role; Summer comes before Atumn as Twilight comes before death. Death is the last of the mysteries, the last of the dreams. The whole poem is deeply evocative

"They breathe their spells towards the departing day

Encompassing the earth, air, stars and sea

.../Responding to the charm with its own mistery" (L. 7-10)

Death receives several names; Twilight (5), Obscurest Glen (6) departing day (7) etc. Life is a dream or just an illusion for many authors like Calderon or Plato (very important for romantics),

There is a sense of solemnity in the poem. If Shelley´s tone was misterious and Unamuno´s deeply religious, Gray´s is a bit of heroic or mythical. His whole vocabulary refers to empires, fallen kingdoms...etc; heraldry (l. 33), paths of glory (l. 36), honour (l. 43), the rod of the empire (l. 47), tyrants (l.58), throne (l. 67).

"Y desde el cielo de la noche, Cristo,

Unamuno´s point of view about death has less of a myth and more of scathological in both sides of the word (adj. Relativo a las postrimerias de ultratumba/ Referente a los excrementos y suciedades, Diccionario P&J vol IV) when he compares a graveyard with a typical farmyard from Castilla. That is the difference of perspective between a believer (Shelley or Gray) and the howl of an agnosticist (Unamuno). For him, death is a gravestone over everyone´s head that we carry since our birth.

In fact those are not poems of death exactly but poems of graveyard. There is an important difference between the English graveyard and the Spanish one. Spanish Graveyard is like a farmyard, with low walls of mud and adobe, while English typical one was placed around a little church, with some gravestones behind a little garden. Actually I´ve seen both kinds of burial in Castilla, but the second type no longer exists.

Some common words found in the essay are:
That´s Shelley´s, Shelley Gray, Miracle Play, Shelley´s Unamuno, Sheperd Souls, Gray´s Shelley´s, Tiempo Tiempo, Notre Dame, Unamuno Gray, Calderon Plato, de la, el sueño, de los, en un, en un cementerio, vision death, los vivos, alli los, unamuno gray, ¿sera verdad, life death, step circle life, un cementerio de, cementerio de lugar, de la muerte,
Approximate Word count = 1849
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)